MOTORSPORT: Webber in huge crash but Porsche wins

Toyota takes manufacturer and driver titles
Mark Webber has survived a massive crash at the final round of the World Endurance Championship, but the other Porsche 919 Hybrid won the six-hour race in Brazil – the marque’s first victory since its return to top-line sports car racing this year.

Webber crashed backwards into a wall after losing control of his car at close to 300kmh on the left-hand sweep on to the start-finish straight of the Interlagos track in Sao Paulo where he won the Formula One Grand Prix in 2009 and 2011 and ended his F1 career little more than year ago.

The Porsche was destroyed and the wreck caught fire but Webber gave the thumbs up as he was stretchered away from the scene for checks at the circuit’s medical centre. While in a satisfactory condition, Webber was transferred to a São Paulo hospital and was to be kept overnight for further checks.

The last 26 minutes of the race after the accident, which also involved a Ferrari from one of the slower classes, were run under caution because of the time it took to extract Webber and clear the wreckage.

Porsche’s racing division tweeted: “Heavy crash for @AussieGrit in #porsche919hybrid no 20. Driver is ok.”
And a statement from the governing body of world motorsport, the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), said: “Webber is awake and alert in medical centre.”

The nine-time GP winner, in his first season back in sports car endurance racing, also had a huge crash at Interlagos in 2003, when racing for Jaguar in his second season of F1.

Swiss driver Neil Jani took the chequered flag first today in the other 919 Hybrid, ahead of the Toyota TS040 Hybrid driven by Englishman Anthony Davidson, while Danish endurance racing legend Tom Kristensen crossed the line third, a lap down, in an Audi R18 e-tron quattro.

Interlagos was the eighth and last round of the WEC season in which Davidson and Swiss teammate Sebastien Buemi won the drivers’ championship, Toyota the manufacturers’ title, Audi the all-important Le Mans 24-Hour and Porsche flagged its challenge for the future with this victory.

The Porsche that was destroyed in the race had started from pole position, thanks to the combined efforts of Webber and German co-driver Timo Bernhard in qualifying, but was running sixth at the time of its crash. New Zealander Brendon Hartley was the third driver in that car.
The 919 in which Jani won was co-driven by German Marc Lieb and Frenchman Romain Dumas.

It led the Toyota by 14.8 seconds when the yellow flags came out for the Webber crash, with Davidson having what seemed to be the advantage of fresher tyres.

Porsche opted not to give Jani fresh tyres at his final pitstop just inside the last hour, while Toyota fitted new Michelins when Davidson stopped a few minutes later.

Davidson immediately made up several seconds but Jani had stabilised the gap before the safety car came out. Jani said he was confident he would have held off the Toyota in the final stages.

“It was looking OK – when I was in free air I could do good times,” he said.

The race marked the end of Audi’s nine-time Le Mans winner Kristensen's career in sports car endurance racing and he was joined on the podium by his co-drivers, Brazilian Lucas di Grassi and Frenchman Loic Duval.

Toyota and Audi took fourth and fifth places.

Vettel has a run in two-year-old Ferrari
Sebastien Vettel, the teammate with whom Webber had such a strained relationship at Red Bull Racing but who was upstaged there by fellow Aussie Daniel Ricciardo this year, has had his first taste of an F1 Ferrari.

Vettel drove a two-year-old F2012 model at the Italian team’s private test track, Fiorano, at its Maranello headquarters on the weekend. Vettel was tied to RBR until Friday and it was annoyed at his presence in the Ferrari garage during last week’s post-season test in Abu Dhabi.

Taking advantage of his “freedom” on Saturday the German, world champion the previous four years, sported a white helmet with the words, “My first day at Ferrari.”

F1 rules preclude him from driving any F1 Ferrari newer than the F2012 before next year and it must have tyres made specifically for that model.

Solberg a cut above World RX’s teenage stars
The first World Rallycross Championship (World RX) has ended in Argentina with Norwegian superstar Petter Solberg, who already had clinched the title, taking his fifth win in the 12-round series in his privateer Citroen.

Ford Olsbergs MSE won a three-way battle for the teams’ championship with Volkswagen Marklund Motorsport and Team Peugeot-Hansen as its 18-year-old Latvian Reinis Nitiss and his Norwegian teammate Andreas Bakkerud finished second and sixth at the Argentinian round at San Luis.

Ford Olsbergs MSE, which has bases in Sweden and California, has a deal to supply up to 10 Super Lites cars to the new Australian Rallycross Championship if it gets off the ground next year.

World RX Lites Cup winner Kevin Eriksson, another 18-year-old and the son of Ford Olsbergs MSE team owner Andreas Eriksson, finished third at San Luis in his debut in the premier Supercar class.

Volkswagen Marklund Motorsport’s 23-year-old Finn Topi Heikkinen picked up enough points in Argentina to finish the season’s runner-up to Solberg while Nitiss ended the championship third.

“This championship has so many talented drivers ... I am extremely impressed with the high standard of driving we have had this year – especially from the younger guys,” Solberg said.

“But I will be back and fighting for more seasons to come.”

Scottish team Albatec Racing had both drivers – team owner Andy Scott and recent recruit Ollie Donovan – in the semi-finals for the first time this season after parting ways with Canada’s 1997 F1 world champion Jacques Villeneuve.

Image: YouTube